her husband, kinde to her children; Pittifull to the Poore, and a Pattern of a good Wife to all that knew her;" the other, which was on an ancient stone at the upper end of the south aisle, the portraitures in brass of a man and woman with a tablet at their feet.

The only gallery now existing-and this it is proposed to remove-is the one erected in the north aisle by John Newton, which contains the pew of the poet Cowper.

The earliest mention of a musical instrument in connection with the church is in 1520, when "Richard Cook, alius Squier, gave to a pair of organs here £6, 6s. 8d.,” by which is meant, not that there were two separate instruments, but that the organ had more pipes than one, the word organ," in those days, being used as synonymous with "pipe," and the word "pair" with "set."

66

room with a fireplace century as a Sundayoccupies the site and

The porch, above which is a small used at the commencement of the school,1 is of modern date, 1807, but incorporates the remains of a former porch, erected, as we should judge from the date on a square stone in front of the present one, in 1686. It is a somewhat unusual circumstance for a porch to be on the north side, but at one time there was a south porch as well. The tower has a fine west doorway, two light windows, and octagonal pinnacles at the angles; and the spire-the

"Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear

is octagonal, rises from a cornice of masks and flowers, has four small lights with canopied heads, on the north, east, south, and west sides, each of which is surmounted with a cross, is 185 feet in height, and owes much of its nobleness of appearance to the entasis, or bulging of its sides.

Originally there were only four bells, of which the largest bore the inscription—

"Ora pro nobis, virgo Maria."

1 Before the Reformation the room over a church porch was called a parvise, and not infrequently a priest dwelt in it. 2 Cowper: Task, I.

The present harmonious peal of six was recast out of the four in 1611.

The aisles are embattled, and the cornice to the chancel is rich in grotesque gargoyles,1 masks, and flowers. Important restorations have gone on during the last few years: in 1870 the chancel was restored by the Earl of Dartmouth, when the stained glass window at the east end was given by Thomas Revis, Esq.; and in 1873 a west window was given by Mrs. Welton of Olney, and a faculty was obtained for the removal of the west gallery, and for the restoration of the nave under the direction of Sir George Gilbert Scott, who had also directed the restoration of the chancel. At the close of 1884 the top of the steeple was restored. At the same time the weathercock, which is 2 feet 9 inches from beak to end of tail, and 2 feet high, was taken down to be regilded; and on it were found stamped the date 1829, the name of the Vicar, Rev. H. Gauntlett, the initials of the churchwardens at the time, B. C., J. H., W. L., and the following triplet, through which a bullet had pierced :

"I never crow;

But (sta)nd to show,

Whence winds do blow."

The hamlet of Warrington is, and has always been, included in the parish of Olney; consequently in old books we frequently meet with the term Oulney-cum-Warrington; but the inscription on the weathercock brought to our minds an old custom that had well nigh been forgotten, for on it are stamped the initials not merely of two churchwardens, as we should naturally have expected, but of three, an anomaly explained by the fact that the extra official represented Warrington. B. C., = Benjamin Coles; W. L., William Lord; and J. H., John Herring, the last of the race of Warrington churchwardens.

In the churchyard, at that corner formed by the mill garden and the Lordship Close, stood formerly a chantry or chapel to

1 Projecting water-spouts. They are not infrequently figures of animals. 2 Sir Gilbert Scott was born at Gawcott, near Buckingham, on July 13, 1811, and died in London on March 27, 1878. He was a grandson of the Rev. Thomas Scott the commentator.

the Virgin (erroneously styled the Earl of Warwick's chantry) that originated with the last Lord Bassett of Drayton, and lord of the manor of Olney, who endowed it that his soul might be prayed for for ever. Most of the chantries belonging to our ancient churches were destroyed by Henry VIII. at the dissolution of the monasteries (1536-1539); this one, however, was standing as late as 1546; they were often lavishly enriched with sculpture, beautiful tracery, and even with paintings. The churchyard cross stood about midway between the north-west angle of the tower and the wall of the Lordship Close. Its base, for many years the only portion that remained of it, was removed about 1800. Here pious worshippers would kneel a moment and offer a short prayer preparatory to entering the church; here, at times, services were held, and the officiating priest would harangue his audience from the steps at its base; and here, in those primitive times, when public buildings were undreamt of, the town meetings were held; and the knight or the farmer, the tradesman or the labourer, or anybody else who had important business to transact, would be sure to transact it at the churchyard cross.

Of the monuments in the churchyard, one of the most interesting is that to the memory of Mrs. Newton's father, a great invalid, who arrived in Olney in February 1776, and remained here until his death in 1777. Only two of the Vicars of Olney are known to be buried here, the Rev. Henry Gauntlett and the Rev. Dr. Langley; a mural tablet, however, to the memory of the Rev. Moses Browne is affixed to the south wall of the chancel. Many of the well-carved gravestones, which are embellished with representations of angels, skeletons, cherubs, and books, are the work of James Andrews, the same who drew Cowper's profile; the best is that near the porch, with a farmyard scene-a cut haystack, sheep, trough, crook, shears, &c. ; but unfortunately it has suffered much from exposure to the weather. It is to the memory of William Lambry, a pasture-keeper of Weston Underwood, who died in 1779.

James Andrews taught Cowper drawing, and was called by him "my Michael Angelo." "I draw mountains," says the

poet, "valleys, woods, and streams, and ducks and dabchicks; I admire them myself, and Mrs. Unwin admires them, and her praise and my praise put together are fame enough for me.” In a letter to Mr. Newton he says, "James Andrews pays me many compliments on my success in the art of drawing, but I have not yet the vanity to think myself qualified to furnish your apartment."

On Andrews's stone to the memory of Charles Morgan, who died in 1795, aged seventeen, and Barbara Morgan, aged four, are the following lines, which are thought to have been written by Cowper :

"Let the gay youth review this solemn page,

And see death certain here at every age;
Not all the fondness that a mother knows,
Nor all the sweet solicitude she shows,

Can her loved offspring for a moment save,

Nor snatch these objects from a greedy grave."

In the south aisle of the church is a mural tablet with a punning inscription to William Gaines, who died in 1657. The earliest gravestones in the churchyard whose inscriptions are legible are those of Robert Sharp (1667), Henry Belshare (1672), and Edmund Ball (1692).

The last is the coffin-shaped stone near the north-west corner of the tower; the inscription, which is difficult to read, being

"Edmund Ball, Died 11th Day of May 1692.

My TIME is pass'd as you may see
Prepare Thyselfe to Follow Me."

For the first fifty years or so after Olney Church was erected, Weston Underwood was merely a chapelry of Olney, and had not the right of sepulture; hence it is not improbable that the narrow way leading from the Weston Road to the churchyard, which bore the startling appellation of Dead Lane, now Lime Street, obtained its name from the fact that it was the lichway or funeral-path along which bodies were brought from Weston.

V.

THE VICARAGE.

If pilgrimages formed part of the Evangelical course, the little town of Olney should have attracted as many pilgrims as S. Thomas's shrine at Canterbury did five centuries before."—REV. J. H. OVERTON, The English Church in the Eighteenth Century.

NUMEROUS and interesting are the associations that rise within our minds at the mention of Olney Vicarage, the comfortable and picturesque parsonage that was the residence at various times of Newton, Cowper, Scott, and Gauntlett, of Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh.

1

Until 1504 the benefice was a rectory, but the present Vicarage occupies the spot on which stood the original parsonage. The greater part of the ancient Rectory was rebuilt by William Johnson, Esq., about 1642, at the time he enlarged the "Great House," a spacious mansion that stood between the church and the mill, of which we shall presently have occasion to speak further; but it was not until 1767 that it assumed its present shape, being enlarged and almost rebuilt by Lord Dartmouth for the Rev. John Newton; "so that," says the latter, "from one of the most inconvenient, I have now one of the best and most commodious houses in this county."

Time has mellowed the appearance of the Vicarage, and the newly built, "well-sashed" house of Cowper's letters is just beginning to look venerable. The gates of entrance and

1 The mistake of supposing that the "Great House" was the old parsonage arose from the fact that the former was the residence of the Rev. H. Gauntlett during the four years he was curate at Olney, and of some of the curates his predecessors.

2 The "Great House" was built previous to 1624, for there is a view of it in the stuccos that were taken from the "John Brunt" house in Olney, and that is their date.